


Wings Still Suck

by Kissa



Series: Taking Flight [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alone In the Dark, BAMF Jace Wayland, Blood and Gore, Boys In Love, Cemetery, Claustrophobia, Established Relationship, Good Boyfriend Alec Lightwood, Hurt Jace Wayland, Jace Wayland Feels, M/M, Night, No Parabatai Curse, POV Jace Wayland, Pain, Parabatai, Parabatai Bond, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa
Summary: Jace's wings pick the shittiest timing to come in - during a fight, where Jace is surrounded by demons.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood/Jace Wayland
Series: Taking Flight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136123
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	Wings Still Suck

Jace is the ripe old age of twenty when it happens.  
  
His life has gotten so intense and demanding that he’s almost forgotten the topic of wings completely. He is so good at killing things and dispatching them to the chaos from whence they came - it’s become one of life’s joys and highlights.  
  
But one day, chasing some Shax demons in the musty underground corridors under an old cemetery, Jace tastes blood in the back of his mouth and feels a strange pull on his back.  
  
“Oh, fuck no.” He whispers. He has to kill all the demons before it starts, or it’s curtains for him.  
  
And, because when it rains, it pours, there’s no cell signal in that forsaken place. He cannot call Alec. All he can do is hope that his parabatai will somehow feel in the bond that something is wrong and come look for him.  
  
Jace doesn’t value his own life very much. He knows it is his destiny as a soldier to die fighting demons. But he thinks of Alec, and how he will feel to come running only to find him dead, bleeding out or torn to pieces. He fights to prevent that, ignoring the pain tearing through him.  
  
One, two… then the third Shax demon falls too. And the remaining three are doing a weird dance around Jace, stalling. They can sense his increasing vulnerability and they are waiting for the right time to strike. Shax demons are cowards, backstabbers and runners. But they do like an easy kill and don’t let a chance at one go by.  
  
Jace weighs his options.  
  
He looks at the time. Not long until dawn. And instead of charging at the demons and watching them scram, only to return to taunt him, he cuts through their blockade and runs down a narrow corridor, to a subterranean level of a historical crypt.  
  
Now they are the ones chasing after him, and he has to activate his strength rune while running. With a last burst of speed, he reaches the old wrought iron door to the crypt, tearing it out and sprinting to the stone tomb in the middle of the room. He can only push the lid aside enough to sneak in and, another strength rune later, he slams the lid shut, locking it with a rune from the inside.  
  
But now he has a whole new set of problems. He’s cooped up in a small space with a dead guy whose ribs are poking his back. He has a limited supply of air. And he is sprouting his wings.  
  
Maybe this is how he dies.  
  
But Jace has been trained so well and so hard - this is what he had his childhood stolen from him for. Survival against all odds.  
  
He’s read stories of mundane women who gave birth in complete silence, to avoid having their babies taken from them. Or soldiers amputating their own limbs without a sound, to not alert the enemy to their position. Surely someone with angel blood should not have that big an issue.  
  
But buried alive? The urge to scream is immense.  
  
And the pain in his back is more than he can take. But he takes his leather glove-covered fist and bites it, hard. The terror expands and spreads through him as he feels his flesh tear and he can do nothing against it. There is only enough room to turn onto his belly, so the wings have room to stretch to their full length.  
  
Jace feels something wet and sticky run down his back. He only identifies what it is once the rusty metal smell hits him.  
  
Next, it’s everywhere and Jace feels like he is nothing but a bag of blood someone is piercing in several places as he coughs up blood and the many gashes on his back drip down to his belly and to his legs. Even between his ass cheeks.  
  
But soon, the pain evens out and, even though it doesn’t subside, it’s no longer new, and Jace can come to terms with it.  
  
It’s minutes, or maybe hours, until he passes out from the pain and the exertion.  
  


* * *

  
“Izzy, help me push this slab aside. He’s gotta be under here.” Alec’s grim voice resonates against the walls of the crypt.  
  
With a loud creak of rock gliding over rock, they manage to get the tomb open.  
  
Alec looks inside, prepared for the worst.  
  
He sees Jace, white as paper, in a pool of his own blood, a crushed skeleton and tattered clothes.  
  
No wings.  
  
Izzy’s lower lip starts to tremble. She is strong, stronger than Alec when it comes to horrible sights, but this is their brother, lying there in the fetal position, unmoving.  
  
“I’m too late, Izzy. I can’t feel him.” Alec says, lifting his shirt to look at their rune. It’s no longer black, but white and gold at the edges.  
  
“By the Angel. What’s happening?” Izzy wonders. “Pick him up. Let’s take him home. I don’t like seeing him down there.”  
  
Alec obeys, happy to be given clear instructions that he can follow.  
  
He leans down to lift Jace and he notices he barely weighs a thing. Like he’s not even part of their reality. But he’s there and Alec tucks his parabatai against his chest, carrying him as one would a sleeping child.  
  
Soon, they make it back to the surface and leave the forest surrounding the cemetery, walking in the unfiltered daylight.  
  
In Alec’s arms, Jace becomes heavier again, until Alec can feel all of him is there.   
  
He wakes up and clutches his parabatai’s jacket.  
  
“Fuck. I thought I died. I’m so glad to see you two.” Jace says, his voice sounding hoarse and dry.  
  
Izzy smiles at him from Alec’s side and reaches over to ruffle his golden hair, now caked with blood, dust and cobwebs from the tomb.  
  
“Good thing you decided to stick around. I was in no mood to autopsy you.” She says.  
  
Alec just squeezes him closer to his chest, smiling contentedly and trying not to sing for joy like a child.

At the Institute, Jace is treated for massive blood loss and given a vitamin cocktail so his body can start making all the things it lost. But otherwise, he is given a pat on the back and sent to his room to change into clean clothes.  
  
With perfect timing, Alec joins Jace the moment he lowers himself into a tub full of hot water, undressing and stepping into the tub as well. He looks down at his rune again, before sitting behind Jace. It’s the usual black.  
  
“What happened out there? I could feel your fear and your pain, but I couldn’t find you in time. You were all alone.” Alec says, his words dripping with guilt.  
  
For a long moment, he thinks he won’t get anything out of Jace today.  
  
“The Shax assholes sensed my wings were coming in and they waited for me to get really weak to strike. So I ran and hid. Like a coward.” Jace said.  
  
“Like a fucking survivor. Jace, listen to me. Cemeteries are full of brave men. I’m not losing you to a bunch of bugs from hell. You were not a coward. I wouldn’t have made it.”  
  
“Yeah, well. It was not ideal, but I guess it got me through the night.”  
  
“Did you see them?”  
  
“In the pitch black darkness? Nah. Wings still suck. Great timing, too, during a hunt.”  
  
“They did retract in record time... Your wings are special, Jace.”  
  
Jace turns to look at Alec pointedly and covers his parabatai’s lips with his palm.  
  
“What wings?” he asks. “I’m done talking about those bastards and I know exactly how to get you to shut up about them too.” 

Alec welcomes the return of Jace’s asshole side, even though he can feel in his soul that his parabatai is deeply scarred by his stay in the dark tomb. But directly is not how Jace ever deals with his problems, and Alec will have to persist in getting stuff addressed and fixed.  
  
Jace’s wings remain a mystery - they’ve given him the pain, but without the payoff.  
  
And that’s a Nephilim first. 

(the end)  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far and had a good time, please leave me a kudos and/or a comment!  
> 🖤🖤🖤


End file.
